New Wars, New Media and New War Journalism: Professional and Legal Challenges in Conflict Reporting

Nohrstedt, Stig A

Ottosen, Rune (Contributor)

Responsible organisation

Nordic Council of Ministers, NORDICOM

2014 (English)Book (Other academic)

Abstract [en]

IN THIS BOOK, the authors discuss media coverage of major conflicts, from the Gulf War in1990/91 to the NATO military operations in Libya in 2011 and the now ongoing civil war inSyria. Through in-depth analysis of Norwegian and Swedish media coverage of the Kosovoconflict in 1999, the Afghanistan War from 2001, the Iraq War from 2003 as well asmore recent conflicts, the authors claim that legal issues are poorly covered in the runningnews coverage of major conflicts. Underreporting of legal issues is especially problematicin relation to new forms of warfare involving extra-judicial killing by drones of targetsin Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. While historically Sweden and Norwayhave had different security policy orientations, the tendency is toward the two countriesbecoming more closely oriented through Nordic defense cooperation and participation inthe wars in Afghanistan and Libya.The authors criticize mainstream media for under-communicating what security risks thissupport for the regime change strategies pursued by the US/NATO in the so-called ‘globalwar on terror’ implies for the Nordic countries. The book further discusses the challengeswar and conflict reporting face when confronted with major security leaks throughWikiLeaks and the classified information revealed by Edward Snowden. Theoretically, thefindings are related to the theories of threat society, new wars and risk-transfer warfare aswell as to Johan Galtung’s theory of war and peace journalism. Analyses are inspired bycritical discourse analysis as elaborated in Norman Fairclough’s and Ruth Wodak’s works.